The G7 communiqué, an exciting 36-page read, is a masterpiece of copy-pasting that masterfully expresses Orwell’s art of doublethink. It talks about stabilizing Libya, right after having turned it into a failed state, and it declares the Russian financial expropriation an act of freedom while condemning terrorism only when it is inconvenient. Human rights are praised… except in Saudi Arabia, of course. And the “peace conference” on Ukraine? An incredible success, with a peace plan without the war’s victor! Meanwhile, the BRICS, those visionaries, are building a multipolar international order while we dream of excluding Russians from the Olympics in the name of peace.
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by Elena Basile
Have you tried reading the G7 communiqué? A 36-page text, full of copy-pasting from other documents, written in bureaucratic language that expresses the doublethink coined by Orwell in 1984: the illogical affirmation of opposite theses. It covers the entire world: from Libya to Venezuela to the Sahel. In Libya, after the Anglo-French attack supported by the United States that overthrew Gaddafi’s regime and gave rise to today’s failed state, it claims to support the country’s stability. A typical example of the illogicality that Orwell saw as a pillar of dictatorship.
To the great displeasure of Federico Rampini, who argued that the financial expropriation of $300 billion from Russia, contrary to international law and requested by the Americans, should be carried out “in the name of freedom and life,” the communiqué establishes that the interest on the frozen sum will guarantee a $50 billion loan to Ukraine: another logically and economically coherent thought. It then reiterates solidarity with Israel, which must defend itself in Gaza by complying with international law (a macabre laugh will bury the G7 and the world, as Nietzsche predicted), but references the two-state solution (another laugh). Thus, the miseries of a forum that once, as the G8 and in complementarity with the G20, was one of the pillars of multilateralism are exposed. Today, it self-celebrates the power of a group of states primarily based on military supremacy. Human rights are invoked in China, Iran, and other enemy countries, but not in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf countries, while Assange, the prisoner of the century, is tortured in the heart of Europe. The countries of the Global South present at the Lucerne conference on Ukraine (from Algeria to India to Indonesia to South Africa) did not sign the text. Is it surprising that emerging countries remain somewhat perplexed by the Anglo-Americans who, in Kyiv, carry out a coup, arm and economically seize a country that loses its meager democracy by abolishing opposition and then elections, and fights a suicidal war for American interests? All in homage to International Law?
The “peace conference” achieved the great political objective of having about seventy countries that, under political and economic blackmail, sponsor Ukraine’s “peace plan,” defeated in the absence of the winning country on the ground: Russia. They want to destroy reality and truth. This is another parameter of the dystopian world described by Orwell. Western money and weapons will not change the military situation. Kyiv needs men and ammunition guaranteed only by a direct clash between NATO troops and Russia, which would respond with tactical nuclear weapons. This is the truth. Any intellectually honest military strategist would confirm this. Even Ukrainian terrorism targeting civilians in Russian territory, even the authorization to use top-secret U.S. weapons (obviously operated by Americans) to hit military sites in Russia, will not change the outcome of the conflict. The only way out is by recognizing Moscow’s interests: primarily Ukraine’s neutrality and giving diplomacy a chance in a peace conference on all the other thorny issues: occupied territories, sanctions, autonomy of Russian-speaking regions, European security architecture. Moscow has presented a provocative “peace plan” in response to Lucerne’s provocation. However, it must be realized that the compromise of March 2022, after two years of war and mourning, is no longer possible. Meanwhile, Lavrov hosted the BRICS ministerial meeting in Nizhny Novgorod, which dedicated very little space to Ukraine, focusing on the new rules of cooperation between the five BRICS founders and an important and engaged Global South, strengthening the multipolar project of a new international order based on the principles of the UN Charter without double standards and rejecting U.S. unipolar power (which is no longer “hegemony” as it has lost political-economic and cultural authority).
The Saudi Arabian foreign minister was present along with the Iranian minister. Riyadh did not renew the petrodollar agreement with Washington. The need for de-dollarization is felt by the Global South to avoid Western blackmail (sanctions and financial expropriations). New monetary exchange mechanisms are being considered, and trade and investment within the BRICS are encouraged in local currency. We exclude Russian athletes from the summer Olympics in Paris, precisely while declaring sport a tool for peace (another gem of doublethink in the G7 communiqué), while they aim, with carefully thought-out strategies, to free themselves from the tyranny of the dollar.
Il Fatto Quotidiano, June 18, 2024
